Removing Impurities in Alcohol

I use rum/vodka to fortify wine and make liqueurs, and I noticed something strange when I shook a bottle of plain white rum. (The same thing happened with vodka.) When I shook the bottle, the liquid's appearance changed in three quick stages:

- cloudy all over (first 1-2 seconds)

- started to clear, but a thin layer (< oz.) of white foamy/starchy substance surfaced (3-7 seconds)

- everything cleared back to normal (8-10 seconds)

I'm aware that cheap alcohol is usually not filtered as much as top-shelf brands, so I'm suspecting the shaking caused a temporary "centrifugal effect" that, for a short time, surfaced many of the impurities. If I poured out the little oz. or so of the foamy liquid, would the remaining liquor be cleaner?

Reply to
John Public
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no

that foam you see is just air getting whipped into the liquid. Distillers call that the bead and you can estimate the percentage alcohol of the spirit by the size of the bead.

You cannot purify a spirit in that way.

John Public wrote:

Reply to
Droopy

Google using a brita filter.

There was a story a couple years ago about some college kids using one to purify cheap vodka.

I believe the end result after three passes was that you couldn't tell the difference between cheap stuff and expensive.

John Public wrote:

Reply to
Marty Phee

formatting link

Amazing what I learned from this thread. :*)

Reply to
Dave Allison

Reply to
John Public

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